Monday, 3 August 2009

Death by Motorway

We could be pedants and point out that it really means "Do not cross M32 approach road"

and just like most other signs in the city "no parking", "school keep clear" "speed limit 30", it is completely ignored

As a few shoppers bravely sprint back from the shops to their houses, in between the cars

The interesting question to consider is why are cars driving at 60-70 mph along here?

The roads are set up for it, barriers and signage are optimised for speed, you don't feel welcome on a bike, and pedestrians are simply forbidden. Except they keep coming, and death follows.

There is an alternate option to consider. You could drop the speed on the M32, and then cars wouldn't be pushing to get up to motorway-merge speeds (60mph in theory here), on that road. Instead the cars would only be doing 20-30. Instead of it being a high-speed route in and out the city, you try and make it a low-turbulence, high-throughput route, with safe pedestrian access here and on the St Pauls/M32 roundabout.